Sexual Addiction

Although sex and sexuality are a normal part of life, for some
people sexual behaviour can become compulsive and/or self-destructive.
Sometimes people’ s sexual behaviour feels out of control
or unmanageable. If this is the case, often it is affecting other
aspects of the person’s life (home, work, school, family,
financial) and the person is working to conceal the behaviour. Secrecy
and lies often become a habit for people dealing with a sexual addiction.

A sexual addiction may take a variety of forms. These might include:

Compulsive masturbation

Compulsively viewing sexual or pornographic images

Compulsive searching for sexual partners either on the internet
or in public

Having chronic affairs

Frequent visits to massage parlours or other sex workers

Many people who are dealing with a sexual addiction are survivors
of childhood emotional, physical or sexual
abuse.

A person’s sexual behaviour becomes problematic when:

They would rather engage in acting out behaviour than socialize
with friends and family or do other activities

They feel the need to hide their sexual behaviour

People have a sense of “lost time” or “missing
time” because of their sexual acting out OR hours pass during
the acting out without the person noticing

The person puts himself/herself in dangerous situations during
the acting out behaviour

The person is not practicing safer sex

The person is feeling out of control

Most people benefit from a combination of individual and group
counselling to deal with sexual addiction. I can provide individual
counselling and would refer someone to a 12-step or other support
group. With some people I have used EMDR
to manage cravings to act out sexually.